Gender and Icts

GENDER and ICTs

Overview Report

Anita Gurumurthy

Anita Gurumurthy (author) is a Research Consultant at the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore. She is currently working on a national-level research study in India that seeks to map partnerships between the government and NGOs in public health. She has written on reproductive health and rights, information and communication technologies (ICTs), and globalisation from a Southern perspective. Anita is a member of Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era (DAWN) − a network of Southern feminists − and a founder member of ‘IT for Change’ − a network in India that works on ICT for development issues.

Susie Jolly (editor) is BRIDGE Gender Communications Officer. She has worked on gender and poverty, sexual rights, HIV/AIDS, culture, and ICTs.

Wendy Harcourt (external advisor) is Editor of the journal Development and Director of Programmes at the Society for International Development, Rome, Italy. Wendy has written widely in the area of gender, culture and development, including edited books on women and the Internet, reproductive rights and health, and sustainable development. She is currently undertaking research for two books: ‘Political Conflict, Women and Well-being in South Asia’ and ‘Women and the Politics of Place’.

Credit is due to BRIDGE team members Ra’ida Al-Zu’bi, Lata Narayanaswamy and Hazel Reeves, and to Parminder Jeet Singh and Gurumurthy Kasinathan from IT for Change, for their substantive input into the report, and toJudy Hartley for copy-editing.

This Overview Report has been undertaken with the financial support of the Department for International Development, UK (DFID), Development Cooperation Ireland (DCI), the New Zealand Agency for International Development, the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida) and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC).

BRIDGE was set up in 1992 as a specialised gender and development research and information service within the Institute of Development Studies (IDS), UK. BRIDGE supports gender mainstreaming efforts of policy-makers and practitioners by bridging the gaps between theory, policy and practice with accessible and diverse gender information.

Other publications in the Cutting Edge Pack series:

Gender and Citizenship, 2004
Gender and Armed Conflict, 2003
Gender and Budgets, 2003
Gender and HIV/AIDS, 2002
Gender and Cultural Change, 2002
Gender and Participation, 2001

These packs, along with all other BRIDGE publications including In Brief, can be downloaded free from the BRIDGE website at Paper copies will be available for sale through the IDS virtual bookshop at or from the IDS bookshop, Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex, Brighton BN1 9RE, Email: , Telephone: 01273 678269, Fax: 01273 621202. A limited number of copies will be available on request to organisations based in the South (contact BRIDGE for more details:

ISBN 1 85864 840 8

Table of Contents

Index of Boxes

Index of Tables

Index of Graphs

Acronyms

Glossary

Executive Summary

1. Introduction

1.1 Gender and Technology

1.2 ICTs: Old and new

1.3 The ICT Arena......

1.4 Gender in the ICTs Discourse

2. Inequities in the Information Society

2.1 The Digital Divide

2.2 Gendered Dimensions of the Information Society: The Challenges

3. Gender and ICTs: Mapping Change

3.1 ICTs as Tools for Women’s Right to Development

3.2 Telecentres

3.3 ICTs as Tools to Challenge Gender Inequality and Promote Women’s Empowerment

4. Engendering the ICT Arena – Future Directions

4.1 Need for a Gender-sensitive Policy Environment

4.2 Need for Advocacy towards Gender-sensitive ICT Policies

4.3 Gender concerns in Project Planning and Implementation

4.4 Concluding thoughts

References

Index of Boxes

Box 1: Women’s Pirate Radio – Underside of History......

Box 2: Gender in the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS)......

Box 3: The Rural-Urban Divide......

Box 4: Monopolies and Access for the Poor......

Box 5: Pornography in Internet Cafés......

Box 6: The Knowledge-based Economy......

Box 7: Gender Ideologies in Information and Communications Work......

Box 8: The Internet and the Sex Industry......

Box 9: Examples of E-commerce Opportunities for Women......

Box 10: Gender Differentials in Access to Distance Learning......

Box 11: Telecentres: Some Myths......

Box 12: Gender-aware Guidelines for Policy-making and Regulatory Agencies Recommended by the ITU Task Force on Gender Issues

Index of Tables

Table 1: Women’s Relationship with Technology

Table 2: Advocacy for Gender Issues in New ICTs – Some Critical Milestones

Table 3: Key issues to Consider for Gender-equal Outcomes in the ICT arena

Index of Graphs

Graph 1: Telephone subscribers per 100 population

Graph 2: Access to New ICTs

Graph 3: Access to New ICTs

Graph 4: Total Internet users and female Internet users

ACRONYMS

ALAIAgencia Latinoamerica de Información

APCAssociation for Progressive Communications

APCWNSPAssociation for Progressive Communications Women’s Networking Support Programme

AUWMDAssociation of Uganda Women Medical Doctors

AWORCAsian Women’s Resource Exchange

CBOCommunity-based organisation

CEDAWConvention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women

CODESRIA Council for Development of Social Science Research in Africa

DAWNDevelopment Alternatives with Women for a New Era

DFIDDepartment for International Development, UK

DISKDairy Information System Kiosk

ESCAPUnited Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific

FEMNETAfrican Women’s Development and Communication Network

GKPGlobal Knowledge Partnership

GSWGGender Strategies Working Group

ICTsInformation and communication technologies

IDRCInternational Development Research Centre

IDSInstitute of Development Studies

ILOInternational Labour Organisation

INSTRAWUnited Nations International Research and Training Institute for the Advancement of Women

IPRIntellectual Property Rights

ITUInternational Telecommunication Union

KRNICKorean Network Information Center

KTNKnitting Together Nations

MDGsMillennium Development Goals

MICMinistry of Information and Communications (South Korea)

NGONon-governmental organisation

NGO GSWGNGO Gender Strategies Working Group

REPROSALUDCommunity Reproductive Health Project, Peru

SDCSwiss Agency for Development and Cooperation

SEWASelfEmployed Women’s Association

SidaSwedish International Development Cooperation Agency

SPStability Pact

SP GTFStability Pact Gender Task Force

TNCsTransnational corporations

UNUnited Nations

UNDAWUnited Nations Division for the Advancement of Women

UNDPUnited Nations Development Programme

UNESCOUnited Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization

UNCSTD UN Commission on Science and Technology for Development

UNGASSUnited Nations General Assembly Special Session

UNIFEMUnited Nations Development Fund for Women

USAIDUnited States Agency for International Development

WENTWomen’s Electronic Network Training Workshop

WIPOWorld Intellectual Property Organization

WSISWorld Summit on the Information Society

WTOWorld Trade Organization

GLOSSARY

AnalogueTransmitted bit-by-bit by electronic wave

programme

BroadbandA type of data transmission in which a single medium (wire) can carry several channels at once.

DigitalTransmitted all in one go by digits

GPLGeneral Public Licensing

IPInternet Protocol

ITInformation technology

Input/OutputInput is whatever goes into a computer (e.g. data and commands) while output is anything that comes out of computer (e.g. text and pictures)

PDAPersonal Digital Assistant - a handheld device that combines computing, telephone/fax, Internet and networking features

Proprietary softwarePrivately owned and controlled software

PrepComPreparatory committee

TelecentreCommunity based centres with ICT equipment

TeledensityTelephone density

VoIPVoice-over Internet Phone

For more definitions, search

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

New technologies in the information and communications arena, especially the Internet, have been seen as ushering in a new age. There is a mainstream view that such technologies have only technical rather than social implications. The dramatic positive changes brought in by these information and communication technologies (ICTs), however, have not touched all of humanity. Existing power relations in society determine the enjoyment of benefits from ICTs; hence these technologies are not gender neutral. The important questions are: who benefits from ICTs? Who is dictating the course of ICTs? Is it possible to harness ICTs to serve larger goals of equality and justice? Central to these is the issue of gender and women’s equal right to access, use and shape ICTs.

Access to new ICTs is still a faraway reality for the vast majority of people. The countries of the South, particularly rural populations, have to a significant extent been left out of the information revolution, given the absence of basic infrastructure, high costs of ICT deployment, unfamiliarity with ICTs, dominance of the English language in Internet content and indeed – lack of demonstrated benefit from ICTs to address ground-level development challenges. These barriers pose even greater problems for women, who are more likely to:be illiterate;not know English; and lack opportunities for training in computer skills. Domestic responsibilities, cultural restrictions on mobility, lesser economic power as well as lack of relevance of content to their lives, further marginalise them from the information sector.

The ICT arena is characterised by the strategic control exercised by powerful corporations and nations – monopolies built upon the intellectual property regime, increasing surveillance of the Internet and an undermining of its democratic substance, and exploitation of the powerless by capitalist imperialism, sexism and racism. Within the ICT arena women have relatively little ownership of and influence on the decision-making processes, being underrepresented in the private sector and government bodies which control this arena.

ICTs have brought employment gains, including for women. However, patterns of gender segregation are being reproduced in the information economy where men hold the majority of high-skilled, high value-added jobs, whereas women are concentrated in the low-skilled, lower value-added jobs. Work in call centres perpetuates the devaluation of women’s labour, and organisations in the information technology sector, as elsewhere, reward behaviour that is considered masculine.

Some international organisations and civil society groups are engaging with issues that concern the democratisation of the ICT arena − from the digital divide and the right to communicate, to cultural diversity and intellectual property rights. Gender equality advocates have also been pushing for addressing the gender dimensions of the information society: integrating gender perspectives in national ICT policies and strategies, providing content relevant to women, promoting women’s economic participation in the information economy, and regulating violence against women and children connected to pornography on the Internet. The World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) held at Geneva in December 2003, brought together the multiple stakeholders in the arena to address the challenges and possibilities posed by ICTs, although with mixed outcomes.

ICTs have also been used by many as tools for social transformation and gender equality. For example:

E-commerce initiatives that link women artisans directly to global markets through the Internet, as well as support their activities with market and production information, are being tried today in many places by NGOs.
E-governance programmes have been initiated by some governments using ICTs to make government services more accessible to citizens by providing them electronically, in some cases with an explicit strategy to ensure these services reach women and others who face barriers to access.
Health educators have used the radio to communicate information related to women’s sexual and reproductive health. Possibilities based on the Internet are also being explored.
Information sharing and dialogues through email, online newsletters and List Serves between women from the North and South and among women in the South have also enabled collaboration and a convergence of effort on a global scale to push the agenda of gender equality.

Such activities have been most effective where they go beyond issues of access and infrastructure to consider the larger social context and power relations. Effectiveness and reach have also been enhanced by combining “old” technologies such as radio, with “new” technologies such as the Internet.

Far-reaching changes towards gender equality and women’s empowerment in the ICT arena are needed at every level – international, national and programme. Engendering ICTs is not merely about greater use of ICTs by women. It is about transforming the ICT system. This involves:

Governments building ICT policies with strong gender perspectives and engaging with civil society and gender and ICT experts on these areas.
International fora such as WSIS being used to challenge northern and corporate dominance of the ICT arena.
Clear gender strategies being deployed through design, in the implementation and evaluation of ICT projects and programmes.
Collecting information with sex-disaggregated statistics and gender indicators on access to, use of and content of ICTs, on employment and on education.
Consideration of gender issues in: ICT/telecommunications policy; representation in telecommunications/ICT decision-making; and the differential impact of telecommunications/ICTs on men and women.

To make these happen, gender equality advocates need to storm the ICT arena in the untiring ways we have seen them engage in before.

1. Introduction

______

A century and more after the industrial revolution, we are in the throes of another major shift in human civilisation – the information revolution that has given birth to the “information society”. The “information society” is among the most discussed phenomena in recent times. New information and communication technologies (ICTs), especially the Internet, have been seen as ushering in a new age. As participants in this information age, many of us experience exciting changes in the way our lives are organised today. However, many of us also feel that there are disconcerting aspects to the times we live in. While considerable optimism is vested in the promise of information and communication technologies for human progress, it is also true that the information age is not all rosy – the benefits of this new age have not touched all of humanity, and all its outcomes are not necessarily positive.

Who benefits from ICTs? Who is dictating the course of ICTs? Is it possible to harness ICTs to serve larger goals of equality and justice? These questions are the subject of this report. They have deep social significance and gender is central to these questions.

This introductory section provides a broad sweep of the ICT arena, introducing gender issues. It offers a bird’s eye view of the central themes in the gender and ICTs debate. It covers four broad areas: some basic information on gender and technology; the meaning of ICTs; the ICT arena – its key players and key politics; and an analysis of how gender has featured in the information society debate.

Section 2 of the report goes on to discuss inequities in the ICT arena, and the gender dimensions of these inequities. The potential for ICTs to promote women’s rights and empowerment is discussed in Section 3. Section 4 concludes with a discussion of the directions for engendering the ICT arena.

1.1 Gender and Technology

Debates around the relationship between gender and technology provide a starting point for a discussion on gender and ICTs. This subsection presents some theories examining women’s unequal access to technology and makes a case for considering the context of the relationship between gender and technology.

A Theoretical Background

Mainstream views of technology often take it to be a technical tool that society can use, but not something that in itself is influenced by society. They also ignore the differential influences of technology on the various sections of society. As such, technology is seen to be gender neutral. However, feminist scholarship has pointed to women’s exclusion from science and also from the creation, design and use of technology. Theories of women’s relationship to technology within different strands of feminist thought are summarised in Table 1 below. The more recent critiques point to the dangers of putting technology ahead of people and of an uncritical acceptance of modern technology as something that works everywhere and provides immediate solutions to development challenges. The gendered approach argues that technology is not neutral, but depends on culture. This report takes this gendered/“technology as culture” approach as outlined in the table below.

Table 1: Women’s Relationship with Technology
Approach / Primary Thrust / Central concepts / Critique/Comment
Women in technology / liberal approach / To uncover the women hidden from history / Sees technology as inherently neutral. Sees the challenge to be improving women’s access to technology in a society that is gendered by stereotypical sex roles. / Does not critique technology itself.
Marxist approach / To examine the social relations of technology in terms of class. / Sees women’s exclusion from technology as due to the gender division of labour, and the historical and cultural view of technology as masculine. Sees technology as reflecting male power as well as capitalist domination. / Technology still seen as neutral and “misused” under capitalism
Eco-feminist approach / To show that technology, like science, is part of the masculine project of the domination and control of women and nature. / Gives value to “feminine” knowledge and skills arising from women’s biology and presumed closeness to nature. Has been used to critique military and reproductive technologies. / Takes an essentialist position, seeing gender as (at least partly) biological
Third-world and Subsistence perspectives / To argue the inappropriateness of Western / modern technologies to the Third World. / Challenges western systems of knowledge and technology by asserting that these are colonising and displace local knowledge and experience. Offers a new vision of technology that is democratic, non-colonial, and non-patriarchal. / Puts too much emphasis on people-based knowledge systems, rejecting possible adaptation of modern technologies for progressive purposes.
Gendered / “technology as culture” approach / To reject the view that technology is inherently neutral or inherently masculine / Understands gender and technology as cultural processes which can be negotiated and transformed. The relationship between gender and technology is seen as the core issue. Technology is understood to be ‘shaped by local histories, geographical conditions, and everyday cultural practices...’ (Gajjala 2002). / Based on the interactions between social power relations and the culture of technology.

(Wood 2000)